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Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

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Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#11

Post by adrian_b »

pbmonster wrote: post #10

Any motor experts here? Why are they chasing rare earth metals in the first place? In the end, the mines are going to be in China anyway, right? Why don't we design around rare earth magnets in the first place? Synchronous reluctance motors where torque density isn't a strict requirement, and brushless separately excited synchronous motors (synchro motor with electromagnets on the rotor) for high torque/energy densit…

Those kinds of motors are usable, but they have a lower energy efficiency than permanent-magnet motors, which causes a lower range for an electric vehicle.

In all applications where it is possible to use motors without permanent magnets, that is usually done, because the motors without permanent magnets are normally cheaper.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#12

Post by adrian_b »

richk449 wrote: post #7

It seems amazing it has taken this long. Electric motors are so critical to national security, as well as the US economy. I keep wondering if these folks have a realistic alternative: https://www.nironmagnetics.com/ (They claim high performance rare earth free magnets.)

There have passed too many years since they have claimed that they know how to make iron nitride magnets, but no commercial products have appeared.

The iron nitride magnets require a special crystal structure, which is not the most stable for that material, so it is difficult to find processing methods so that the material will have that crystal structure and even if the structure is produced, it might revert in time to a more stable structure, which does not have the desired magnetic properties.

Like typical for such startups, that company does not say anything about which are the roadblocks that have prevented them for so many years to make iron nitride magnets until now, but it is pretty certain that their patents are bogus and the methods described there have not been usable for making what they claim to be able to make.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#13

Post by Gibbon1 »

XorNot wrote: post #6
ck2 wrote: post #2

"rare earth metals" aren't "rare" to the USA They are "rare" per ton of earth in general So it's just that mining them is so labor intensive and so toxic (uranium and other radioactivity) that it is expensive outside of places like China. Automate that with bots or whatnot and maybe we don't have to invade Canada and Greenland and start WW3

I know you're being facetious but it's also worth spelling out somewhat explicitly as well: the US has never had a supply problem like that because through effective diplomacy and alliances it has commanded an excellent position to negotiate as a preferred trade partner through its world leading expertise in many areas and the export of its military spending as a security partner which up till very recently ensured a…

My dad said there were a couple of countries that produced bauxite who thought they could be the OPEC of aluminum. And found out very quickly that bauxite isn't rare.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#14

Post by adrian_b »

pfdietz wrote: post #9

More interesting to me is Niron Magnetics, mentioned in the article, which is commercializing magnets based on a particular phase of iron nitride. https://www.nironmagnetics.com/

I doubt that they are commercializing anything.

I see on their site now that they are building a plant that is expected to produce 5 (five) tons of magnets per year (compared to 1500 t/year for the plant discussed in the article or with 25000 t/year for the biggest of the around 300 Chinese plants).

Such a small-scale production might be enough only to make samples to distribute to potential customers, to convince them to design products using such magnets.

I will be pleasantly surprised when Niron Magnetics will be able to produce even those 5 tons of magnets.

I have already forgotten how many years have passed since I have seen for the first time Niron Magnetics claiming that they will start soon the production of iron nitride magnets.

Certainly there are more than 5 years since then, perhaps almost 10 years.

Their first patents, in which they have claimed to know how to make iron nitride, have been issued 10 years ago. Their inability to actually produce such magnets demonstrate that at least the claims of the first patents were false.

The language that is used in patent law is that patents "teach" how to do something that was unknown and non-obvious for those who were experts in prior art.

I am pretty sure that the patents of Niron Magnetics do not teach anything, but they are the kind of patents filed by those who want to do something, but they have no idea how to do it, so they file bogus patents with overly broad and inaccurate claims, as a preventive strike used to block any competitors to introduce that kind of products, in order to gain for themselves time to actually discover how to make in reality what they want, in a very different way than described in their fictitious patents.

If iron nitride magnets are indeed possible, then it is likely that Niron Magnetics has delayed by many years their use in practice, by being unable to develop such materials themselves, but simultaneously preventing others to do this.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#17

Post by what-the-grump »

adrian_b wrote: post #14
pfdietz wrote: post #9

More interesting to me is Niron Magnetics, mentioned in the article, which is commercializing magnets based on a particular phase of iron nitride. https://www.nironmagnetics.com/

I doubt that they are commercializing anything. I see on their site now that they are building a plant that is expected to produce 5 (five) tons of magnets per year (compared to 1500 t/year for the plant discussed in the article or with 25000 t/year for the biggest of the around 300 Chinese plants). Such a small-scale production might be enough only to make samples to distribute to potential customers, to convince th…

They just need to hoodwink an investor to give them enough money to buy a factory producing magnets in China. Then they are going to slowly back way from their claims of doing anything special.

If they do not, they will run out of money and close after expending whatever capital they have.

Rinse and repeat and brrr goes the money printer.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#18

Post by foota »

ck2 wrote: post #2

"rare earth metals" aren't "rare" to the USA They are "rare" per ton of earth in general So it's just that mining them is so labor intensive and so toxic (uranium and other radioactivity) that it is expensive outside of places like China. Automate that with bots or whatnot and maybe we don't have to invade Canada and Greenland and start WW3

Fun fact: rare earth metals are actually not the rarest metals per ton in the earth's crust, it's just that they only very rarely form into deposits in the form of minerals, and so they're very disperse.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#19

Post by Zamiel_Snawley »

pbmonster wrote: post #10

Any motor experts here? Why are they chasing rare earth metals in the first place? In the end, the mines are going to be in China anyway, right? Why don't we design around rare earth magnets in the first place? Synchronous reluctance motors where torque density isn't a strict requirement, and brushless separately excited synchronous motors (synchro motor with electromagnets on the rotor) for high torque/energy densit…

Electromagnets for the rotor cause significantly more heating, exactly where it is hardest cool, and where the heat is most likely to seep into the load.

For high torque density applications, heat dissipation is often the limiting factor on duty cycle.

Also, the slip rings capable of passing high current to an electromagnet rotor are expensive and less robust than permanent magnets.

Essentially: it’s possible but I haven’t seen an application where it’s practical.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#20

Post by defrost »

foota wrote: post #18
ck2 wrote: post #2

"rare earth metals" aren't "rare" to the USA They are "rare" per ton of earth in general So it's just that mining them is so labor intensive and so toxic (uranium and other radioactivity) that it is expensive outside of places like China. Automate that with bots or whatnot and maybe we don't have to invade Canada and Greenland and start WW3

Fun fact: rare earth metals are actually not the rarest metals per ton in the earth's crust, it's just that they only very rarely form into deposits in the form of minerals, and so they're very disperse.

From the PoV of Alchemists they rarely (ie. never for the most part) appear as unbound elements in nature.

They are elements that require a lot of chemical processing to seperate and isolate.

The downside is that many of those processes generate a lot of toxic waste that requires (but often never receives) after treatment to neutralise.

Hence reports of dams of low level radioactive waste and so forth associate with rare earth processing (not so much mining as the concentrates are often mined and then shipped elsewhere for processing).

eg: https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/malaysian/rare-earths...

has been an on again, off again relationship for a decade and a half now due to the waste piling up.

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